Listening More Carefully…

Last week an RSPB (Royal Society for the Protection of Birds) magazine arrived. Bird and wildlife writer Simon Barnes describes the arrival of Spring:

‘The birds that live here all year are spectacular enough, but the whole show gets its edge from those that fly in to join us for the spring. We’re a country made richer by those who join us from overseas.

It helps if you learn to listen. My springs are twice as good since I learned birdsong…’

A TWAM (Tools With A Mission) magazine arrived too. The PHOEBE centre in Zimbabwe – Promotion of Health, Opportunity, Equality, Benevolence and Empowerment – ‘delivers support to women and girls facing mental health challenges, while courageously confronting all forms of gender-based violence…’

‘Their programmes are wide and varied… peer-to-peer counselling offers safe, empathetic spaces for women to be heard… teacher training equips educators to recognise mental health challenges in students – and crucially in themselves…’

At Friday’s ‘Music for Wellbeing’ we sung ‘Tie a yellow ribbon round the old oak tree’…

A man’s coming home from prison on a bus, uncertain whether his girlfriend will welcome him home. He’s written, asking her to ‘tie a yellow ribbon round the old oak tree’ if she wants him back. Afraid to look, he asks the bus driver to check. There’s hundred yellow ribbons on the tree… Listening for the silent sign… He’s more than welcome!

Yesterday at church minister-Lou talked about Samuel. In the middle of the night, the boy Samuel hears a voice calling his name. He thinks it’s the old priest Eli, but it isn’t. It happens a second time, then a third time…

‘Then Eli realized it was the Lord who was calling the boy. So he said to Samuel, “Go and lie down again, and if someone calls again, say, ‘Speak, Lord, your servant is listening.’

Musing… Listening more carefully… to the sounds of nature… to the voices of the needy… to the silent signs… to the voice of God… who speaks in all these ways and more!